The Xbox management team has apparently given Bethesda the green light for the development of Fallout 5. However, there are still some unanswered questions about the role-playing game sequel.
Good news for Fallout fans: Despite the recent, massive wave of redundancies at Xbox, the future of the Fallout franchise is not in jeopardy. On the contrary; as the American gaming portal GameSpot now reports, Bethesda has finally been given the green light for a sequel to the post-nuclear role-playing game series. The development of Fallout 5 has therefore begun.
However, many important questions about the project remain unanswered.
What do we already know?
We know that the Microsoft Group has approved the development of Fallout 5 from the Jez Corden recently discussed the future of the popular role-playing series.
In the podcast, the usually well-informed journalist said that Part 5 had been released and development had begun, but he didn’t know which studio was working on it because to his knowledge, the core team at Bethesda is currently working at full capacity on an upcoming second Starfield DLC and The Elder Scrolls 6
It could therefore very well be that Bethesda does not have the fifth part of the series developed by its own Bethesda Game Studios, but by another studio – as happened with Fallout: New Vegas, for which Bethesda only acted as publisher.
A high price
Another juicy piece of information that Corden mentions in the podcast concerns the discontinuation of other Bethesda projects, which happened at virtually the same time as the release of Fallout 5. According to his knowledge, the Go
for a new Fallout happened at the expense of a new, as yet unannounced MMO.
Two weeks ago, as part of the new wave of redundancies at Xbox, it was announced that Bethesda’s online studio Zenimax – the creators of Elder Scrolls Online – was also making massive job cuts. A multiplayer shooter with a sci-fi setting under the codename Blackbird
that has been in development for some time has been discontinued.
And this despite the fact that Xbox boss Phil Spencer himself apparently had a lot of fun with it when playing it. As a result, Zenimax Online President Matt Firor took his hat off.
According to Jez Corden, Microsoft decided to play it safe with an established brand like Fallout rather than invest a lot of money in an unknown MMO. Multiplayer games in particular are often particularly expensive to develop, for example because the corresponding infrastructure first has to be created.
At least Fallout fans can now look forward to a fifth installment in the series, although it is still completely unclear when this will be released.
Considering the Bethesda release rhythm of the last major role-playing game projects, it will probably be another 10 years or so. The comments in the social media are also correspondingly negative. One user wrote on Reddit: I’ll be looking forward to it in a decade!
How do you feel about the announcement of Fallout 5? Are you looking forward to another installment of the wasteland saga or would you have preferred to try out the new MMO from Zenimax? Let us know in the comments!